Perhaps the most encouraging aspect to the articles today on the broad brush of impact investing is the way there is a growing appreciation that government (western in particular) can only shrink in size going forward from recent highs and therefore SIBs/DIBs et al provide a great opportunity, if not the only alternative, to enormous social issues multiplying…as well as potentially sorting out social issues which actually central government in its many facets never actually successfully dealt with in the first place..

This is shaping up to be the year of impact investing – the year when impact investing ceases to be a buzzword or a niche play and when mainstream investors start to recognize the opportunity presented by this growing investment thesis.

Impact investing refers to investing capital with the intention of producing social benefits alongside financial returns.

Impact investing is here to stay.

A growing body of research illustrates that impact investing has not only arrived, it is growing exponentially. The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) recently estimated that there are 199 impact investing funds; a survey by J.P. Morgan and the GIIN in late 2011 found that 19 percent of the impact investors surveyed believe the market is about to take off. J.P. Morgan also estimated that global impact investments exceeded $50 billion in 2010 and predicted that invested capital in the impact investing market could reach $400 billion to $1 trillion by 2020.

Imagine a future with an abundance of quality jobs, affordable homes in environmentally sustainable and thriving neighborhoods and continuous innovation in the delivery of basic services that saves taxpayers billions of dollars, all supporting Benjamin Franklin’s maxim that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

This is the country that people envision when they think of the American Dream — and the same, shared vision that led President Obama to call the issues of growing inequality and economic immobility “the defining challenge of our time,” arguing that government should — as it has in the past — play a supportive role in alleviating the nation’s social crises.

But in a time of reduced public resources, how will we get there?

Through smart public-private partnerships that leverage impact investing, the practice of investing for intentional, measurable positive social and environmental outcomes in addition to financial returns.